Well aware of obstacles which they would have to encounter, Mahmud’s friends determined to select the proper moment for action. Kosrew Pacha, who was more earnest than any other in the cause, did not miss the opportunity of availing himself of Omer-Aga, whose ardent and restless character appeared to have no ambition but to have a field open to his energetic activity. In Turkey, nobility is not the result of birth, but mostly the gift of favor, sometimes of riches, seldom of merit. One of the most remarkable examples of ennobled Turks was Kosrew Pacha himself, who had been bought in the slave-bazaar. The manners of the highest personages do not differ from those of the lowest, and their family life is distinguished by great simplicity and benevolence, even towards the slaves. Moreover, the curiosity which a foreigner awakens everywhere, and more than anywhere else in Turkey, made the Pacha desirous of having frequent interviews with the Frank convert, who by his wit, the originality of his manners, and the singularity of his position, had become the subject of daily talk. The interviews with the Pacha succeeded each other; Omer’s military knowledge made itself manifest; his independent character, his talent, his boldness of conception, and power of carrying out his plans, forcibly attracted the attention of the Pacha. Omer made his former position and misfortune known; he interested, he pleased; the Pacha’s protection was insured to him, and he enlisted in the army of Turkish Regeneration.
Favored by the protection of Sultan Mahmud, to whom Kosrew Pacha had introduced him, after having been aide-de-camp to the Pacha, then aide-de-camp and interpreter to General Chzarnowsky, lastly an officer of the Imperial Guard; dissatisfied with the slow progress of his party, which was continually thwarted by provincial insurrections, he asked to be permitted to try his fortune in some of the expeditions which were continually being made, and began his military career in 1836. Bosnia, Servia, and Bulgaria were successively the theatres of his exploits.
From that day he applied himself to improving the efficiency of his army, paying attention not only to the discipline, but also to the education, of the soldier. The Mussulman, good and meek-hearted by nature, never ferocious but in individual cases, was raised by him to the self-consciousness of human dignity, by regulations, ordinances, and laws, calculated to make him cognisant of the rights, and conversant with the duties that belong to every one, in every state of life. Self-esteem—a feeling that, being once awakened from a long lethargy, soon endears itself to every man—discipline, and Omer’s benevolent disposition even towards the lowest of his soldiers, caused him to be loved by them more as a father than as a general.
After Mahmud’s decease, his expeditions continued under the new Sultan. In Albania, in Bosnia once more, in Syria, in the Kurdistan, among the wild tribes of the Ravendus, Romelia, in the Moldo-Wallachian Principalities, and in Montenegro, he was distinguished in both a military and civil capacity. Having adopted Turkey as a second country, he loved and loves her, not as a warrior merely, but as the member of a family which powerful enemies are attempting to disorganize and destroy. Before fighting, he always tried to conciliate; compelled to employ force, he never abused victory, to assuage either the resentment or the cupidity of his troops.
In a work so difficult as the regeneration of an entire nation, he had many fellow-laborers. Amongst them the first undoubtedly was an eminent man, whose talents as a diplomatist London and Paris have had occasion to notice, and whom they have since been able to appreciate as a statesman: we mean Reschid Pacha. We call him a companion, and not the chief of the enterprise; for Reschid Pacha, indeed, tried to transplant European civilization to the empire, though by measures which would have had no immediate utility without the activity of Omer Pacha.
In the midst of many labors, he ran through all the degrees of the army, till he obtained the rank of the highest in the Ottoman service. Invested with the great decoration of the Nichani-Iftikhar by Sultan Mahmud; with that of the Mejidiè[4] by Sultan Abdul Medjid; and, lastly, presented at Shumla with a sword of honor, he could not avoid making bitter enemies. Old Turkey was continually watching him with envious rancor; but he shrewdly flattered its apostles when he thought it proper for his purpose; overpowered them with generosity, when an exchange of hostilities would have injured his cause; and openly set them at defiance when dissembling would have been weakness, and silence an act of cowardice.
At this hour he is the first general of the Ottoman army, and millions of eyes are anxiously turned towards him. If the past may afford a clue to judge of the future, the fortune of Omer Pacha has been constant for so many years as to leave no doubt of his ability. So brilliant, so important and high a position is not reached from the lowest condition, without one’s being possessed of merit, and that in an eminent degree.
His domestic life is very far from being tainted with the debauchery that is generally attributed, and often falsely, to the private conduct of the Moslems. He has had no more than two wives; and although he was allowed to have them contemporaneously, he did not marry the second until after his divorce from the former. This was a Turkish woman, daughter of an Aga of the Janissaries, who died in 1828, and was a pupil of his protector, Kosrew Pacha. Emancipated from the severe restraint of the harem to the liberty of European customs, she abused it, and forced her husband to a separation. The second is a European, and was a very young maid, of a mild and virtuous character, when he saw her first, and married her at Bucharest, where she was exercising, at fourteen years of age, the profession of a teacher of the pianoforte. She is from Cronstadt in Transylvania, and her name is Anna Simonich. He has no offspring but a natural daughter, born of an Arabian slave in Syria. A male child, the fruit of his new marriage, died at four months of age, crushed under a carriage upset in the passage from Travnich to Saraievo. He has, therefore, as yet, no probability of being remembered in his adopted country but by his deeds.
In Omer Pacha may be traced many of the essentials of a great general. He takes a warm interest in the welfare of his men, and knows how to earn their goodwill; at the same time that he treats them with a degree of severity bordering upon harshness. Like Bonaparte, he is fond of those short, quick, terse addresses, which, in a moment, electrify an entire army, and is consequently regarded with veneration by his troops, who yield him the most implicit obedience.
His habits are simple and frugal; he is active and indefatigable in business; of an upright, benevolent, and gentle character, with a somewhat nervous and excitable temperament; often generous, sometimes prodigal, always absolute, and little accustomed to being contradicted in his opinions. He is fifty-three years of age; he is tall and thin, has a martial bearing, an expressive and marked physiognomy, a quick and penetrating eye, a nose a little compressed, a thick and grey beard, a large head—a perfectly Croatian type.